Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Birkett: If it had been up to me, DuPage County would not have put Rolando Cruz on trial

In an extraordinary, two-hour interview with a handful of reporters and commentators -- including some who have been highly critical of his office -- Du Page County State's Attorney Joe Birkett said Wednesday morning that, in his opinion, charges never should have been brought against the three initial suspects in the Jeanine Nicarico murder case.

Ten-year-old Jeanine's 1983 murder sparked a series of investigations, trials and related controversies that lasted more than a quarter of a century. Now that the case appears to be over -- former Aurora resident Brian Dugan was sentenced to death in November after having pleaded guilty to the crime -- Birkett invited a group of journalists to his office for an open ended Q and A.

"Anybody who looks at what the evidence was then and what it is now would have to say these guys are innocent," said Birkett, referring to Rolando Cruz, Alex Hernandez and Stephen Buckley, who were tried for the murder in 1985. "They’re actually innocent. They had nothing to do with it."

Buckley's trial ended in a hung jury and he was never retried. Cruz and Hernandez were convicted and sentenced to death. When Cruz's conviction was overturned in 1994, Birkett, then chief of the criminal division, was assigned to lead the prosecution in the retrial.

He said he meticulously examined all the evidence at that time. "I abstracted both trials myself personally. I read every single page of every report, both the sheriffs office reports and the Department of Criminal Investigations," he said. He concluded the evidence was poor, that the case should not be retried and the investigation should be reopened. He said he came up with a list of 147 questions to which he felt the state did not have sufficient answers.

"Before I spoke to any of my colleagues or my bosses, I called Tom Nicarico (the victim's father) and told him that ... as a prosecutor I had serious concerns about going forward with the case at that stage," Birkett said. "And I felt that the most prudent thing to do was to dismiss the case and start over."

The case needed "to be investigated fresh from the git-go," Birkett said. "I disagreed with the decision to go forward."

Indeed, he said, "the original indictment (in 1984) should not have been brought based upon the evidence that was offered."

The case became hugely controversial in mid 1985 when Dugan was arrested and confessed to a strikingly similar abduction, rape and murder of a little girl in LaSalle County. As part of his plea negotiations, Dugan offered a detailed admission to having abducted, raped and murdered Jeanine (the crime was committed 27 years ago Thursday).

"I was convinced that Brian Dugan was the killer," Birkett said Wednesday. But " I was not
convinced at that time that all of these links (alleged personal connections between Dugan and the original trio of suspects) were unconnected."

Shortly thereafter, Birkett left the prosecution team and had no involvement in the 1995 re-trial. "I didn’t think anybody acted unethically in going forward at that time with the prosecution," Birkett said. "If I had felt that way maybe I would have left the office.

At that trial, a judge found Cruz not guilty. Charges against Hernandez, who was also facing a re-trial, were quickly dropped after Cruz's acquittal.

Birkett said he called reporters together because, he said, "to continue to link the men and women who work in this office with those mistakes is wrong....What I want is respect for what this office does and what we have done. And I want respect and honesty from the media and media accounts of this case."

He said he's proud of the meticulous way the office he has led since October, 1996, built the case against Dugan, whom he now describes as the "sole offender."

Were it not for misrepresentations and exaggerations of his role in the wrongful prosecutions in the Nicarico case "right now I'd be the attorney general or the governor," Birkett said.

He said one of predecessors, former Illinois Atty. General Jim Ryan, "made big mistakes in this case. He listened to the wrong people sometimes, and I think the influence of the input from, whether it’s the victims family or law enforcement or (former) Sheriff (Richard) Doria. Huge mistakes were made."

Ryan, who was defeated earlier this month in the Republican gubernatorial primary, was the DuPage County State's Attorney from 1985 until early 1995, when he was sworn in as Attorney General. During his recent gubernatorial campaign he released a statement about the prosecutions of Cruz and Hernandez, saying, in part, "the system and I failed to achieve a just outcome. And for that I am sorry."

Anthony Peccarelli, Birkett's immediate predecessor, was appointed interim State's Attorney to fill out the balance of Ryan's term. Birkett said it was Peccarelli, who died in 2005, who made the decision to push ahead with the retrial of Cruz.

Neither Birkett, Peccarelli nor Ryan were among the seven law enforcement officials -- detectives and prosecutors -- who were subsequently indicted, tried and acquitted on charges they'd conspired to frame Cruz for a murder he did not commit.

The special prosecutor in the so-called DuPage Seven trial in 1999 was William Kunkle, a former Cook County prosecutor who at the time was an attorney in private practice in Chicago.

DuPage County Chief Judge Edward Kowal had appointed Kunkle to the position. It was a controversial appointment because Kunkle was a prominent advocate for the death penalty whose claim to fame was having led the prosecution against serial killer John Wayne Gacy. News reports also noted that, in 1994, Kunkle turned down Jim Ryan's offer to be the special prosecutor in the Cruz case.

On Wednesday, Birkett added a new and previously unreported detail that bolsters the view that Kunkle was an inappropriate choice: Kunkle had conducted a thorough review of the case in 1994 at Ryan's request. Birkett said he attended the meeting at which Kunkle shared his findings.

"Bill Kunkle said to Jim Ryan, `Not only is there sufficient evidence to go forward. You have a moral obligation to take the case to trial.’ I recall that," Birkett said.

Kunkle is now a judge at the Maywood branch of the Cook County Circuit Court, and efforts to reach him Wednesday afternoon were unsuccessful.

Update: I reached Kunkle Thursday morning. He said he didn't recall using the expression "moral obligation" and added, "that really doesn't sound like me."

Kunkle said his review of the case was hardly as extensive as Birkett says. "I had the Supreme Court opinion and a copy of a few of the witness transcripts," he said. "The stack of documents was only about an inch and a half thick."

Kunkle said Judge Kowal was aware of the conversations with Ryan and believed, as Kunkle believes, that it posed no conflict of interest with his role as a special prosecutor.

Kowal, who had presided over the original trial of Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley died on January 26 at age 85.

The unsuccessful DuPage Seven prosecution was based on a theory that the lawmen conspired to build a case against Cruz.

Birkett said that though "there were a lot of mistakes made," they were merely the result of a certain "tunnel vision" that infected the case.

Were these mistakes made in bad faith, as so many critics have charged over the years? In ansewring that question, Birkett read from a recent Sun-Times editorial about the conduct of DuPage County law enforcement officials early on in the case:

They concocted statements, encouraged witnesses to lie, withheld and misrepresented evidence, used a phony expert witness.

"Those are the conclusions a lot of people could draw from observing" the case, he said. "So I'm saying it's a matter of the the way you interpret the evidence. I do think it was a huge mistake."

But in the end, he said, "The system worked -- so to speak -- worked for Cruz and Hernandez. It didn't work sufficiently well and reforms were needed and were long overdue. "

He added, "The biggest problems with Cruz and Hernandez
were the caliber of the attorneys who represented them initially, the lack of assistance that they had (and) the funding
issues. Those are all issues that have been resolved (through reforms in the justice system)."

To the suggestion that the capital justice system can never shed itself of the malignant effects of the sorts of human failings seen in this case, Birkett said: "You are flat out wrong that there’s any likelihood that an innocent person will ever be executed. Ever. In this state, or for that matter in any other state. Keep in mind, many of the reforms that began here are now the law, or are in the process of becoming law in every state."

I asked Birkett how he squared his recollection of his 1994 conversation with the Nicaricos with their letter in Voice of the People in late September of 2002 in which they wrote that neither he nor Ryan "have ever expressed any doubt to us about the guilt of the murder of their daughter."

He said, "I told you before. When I told them, I didn’t’ think the case should go forward. If we’re ever going to get to the truth the only was is to dismiss the case and start new."

Birkett also said "I feel terrible about what happened to Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez." He added, "Does Rolando Cruz get his name back? I don’t know. I hope he does."

----

MORE:

Here are some bonus direct quotes from Birkett's conversation with reporters:

ON BILL KUNKLE: Jim Ryan had asked Bill Kunkle to review the case because he had great respect for Bill Kunkle. Did you guys know this? Bill Kunkle was given the transcripts and the reports and he reviewed the case. And I was there for the meeting with Bill Kunkle and Jim Ryan for Bill Kunkle to give Jim Ryan his opinion. Bill Kunkle told Jim Ryan, “I’ve reviewed the case, just like the Supreme Court said, there’s sufficient evidence to go forward. You have a duty, an obligation to retry the case. And that was it. Jim asked Bill Kunkle whether or not he’d accept and appointment as a special prosecutor to try the case. Kunkle quoted him a fee which I don’t remember the exact fee, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of $300 an hour. Ultimately Jim Ryan declined to appoint Bill Kunkle and he appointed me to prosecute the case. By that time he had already won the primary for attorney general and he had looked likely that he was going to win the general election and become the attorney general. So he was going to be gone. And he asked me if I would stay on the case until we saw it to a conclusion. (follow up question on Kunkle) Here’s what he said, and I’ve never shared this with anybody, because it wasn’t relevant. It was raised a couple of times, and I’ll tell you what happened. Bill Kunkle said to Jim Ryan, "Not only is there sufficient evidence to go forward. You have a moral obligation to take the case to trial." I recall that. Bill Kunkle, I don’t know what he will say. Anyway, fast forward. I told Jim Ryan that I would draw my own conclusions about the case, I had, personally, only a very limited role. I interviewed one witness.....I’m not here to defend Jim Ryan, I don’t have to. But the truth is that Bill Kunkle recommended going forward that we not only had sufficient evidence to go forward, we had a moral obligation to take the case to trial.

ON THE ETHICS OF CRUZ'S THIRD TRIAL: I disagreed with the decision to go forward. But I did not think that it was quote unquote unethical. Especially in light of the supreme court opinions and the opinions of others who reviewed the case. You know, I had a lot of respect for Bill Kunkle. Bill Kunkle didn’t know anything more or less than I knew about the case when he recommended to Jim Ryan to go forward with the case. I had a different view.

ON THE NICARICO FAMILY: I know that Tom and Pat Nicarico felt that I had betrayed them. But I told them, I’m not betraying you. I’m going to look at every piece of evidence and not rule anything out. Just because I have an opinion doesn’t mean that I’m gong to carry the day. It was a very difficult time. God bless them, they’re wonderful people, and I love them, and they’re family. But I do think that (while) victims’ family members have a right to be informed, they do not have a right to direct or to influence the direction an investigation takes...and I thought they had too much of a role, and I ... tried to assure them that I’m not disregarding your input I’m telling you what I believe and what I feel, and I’m going to pursue the evidence.

ON THE MEDIA: I applaud you, all of you, for your coverage. But all I ask is that if you’re gong to cover the role of this administration or the men and women who work here, which is really what I care about, and also the perceptions of the public about the men and women who work here. The men and women who work in law enforcement.

November 19, 1995: THIS IS NO WAY TO CLEAR THE AIR IN THE CRUZ CASE By Eric Zorn.

Some see Friday's appointment of blustery Bill Kunkle to investigate aspects of the Rolando Cruz case as the most brazen, cynical move yet by the brazen, cynical DuPage County authorities involved in the controversial prosecution.

Not me.

I see it as a cry for help, the legal equivalent of a self-destructive act by a troubled adolescent: "We are incapable of addressing this problem ourselves," it says. "Please, won't someone intervene?"

Because not for one minute can I believe that anyone in the county complex really thought Kunkle was the best choice out of nearly 70,000 registered attorneys in Illinois to conduct an utterly impartial investigation into very troubling allegations of official misconduct--an investigation in which the citizens and the press must have great confidence if it is to achieve its goal.

Indeed Kunkle's name would be on any sensible person's short list of least likely special-prosecutor candidates to inspire public confidence, right up there with former prosecutors on the case and relatives of the alleged misbehaving authorities who might have law licenses.

He is already too close for comfort to the prosecution's side of the case: Last year, then-DuPage County State's Atty. Jim Ryan approached Kunkle to ask if he would take a leave from his private practice in Chicago to serve as special prosecutor in Cruz's third trial.

Kunkle declined, and Ryan's office ultimately decided to keep the prosecution in-house. But Ryan's political future now seems tied to public perception of his administration of the case in light of Cruz's recent acquittal, and Kunkle is a political ally of Ryan. Both men are active Republicans--Ryan ran for and won office as Illinois attorney general; Kunkle has run unsuccessfully several times for Cook County judgeships under the GOP banner, and he sought the party's slating to run for county state's attorney in 1990. And Kunkle has donated to Ryan's statewide campaigns.

Further, Kunkle is identified strongly with the pro-death penalty cause. He acquired a high profile when he prosecuted John Wayne Gacy in 1980, and when Gacy's execution drew nigh in the spring of 1994, Kunkle, though he was nine years out of the prosecutor's office, was the leading advocate for capital punishment in public debates and media round tables. He told one interviewer that Gacy should be bashed to death with a baseball bat.

Meanwhile, the alleged misbehavior by lawmen that Kunkle is now assigned to investigate in the Cruz case stands, if proved, to validate a strong argument against the death penalty: When such human imperfections can place innocent men such as Cruz on Death Row, how can we risk the practice?

What further may add to the notion that the appointment of Kunkle smacks more of a whitewash than a housecleaning is Kunkle's long involvement with the prosecution of convicted cop killers Andrew and Jackie Wilson and the defense of the police officers later accused of torturing them.

First, Kunkle prosecuted the Wilson brothers, using a confession that the Illinois Supreme Court later ruled had been improperly introduced because a defendant obviously had been tortured while in custody. Then, after entering private practice, Kunkle defended for many years three of the officers against various civil and disciplinary charges related to torture allegations.

Kunkle also is known to be good friends with both Joe Claps, a top Ryan aide who was once deeply involved in an important aspect of the Cruz case, and Tom Breen, Cruz's lead defense attorney in the last trial. Such alliances may or may not balance out in the end, but who knows? And why should we even have to worry about such an investigation being too cozy?

I don't deny that Kunkle is a very bright and aggressive lawyer who is more than capable of running a thorough investigation untainted by bias or favor. I'm not intending here to question his integrity or judgment, just his baggage.

In appointing him, DuPage Chief Judge Edward Kowal has all but guaranteed that the independent investigation into the Cruz case will create controversy rather than quell it. That's not brazen, it's pathetic.

The U.S. Department of Justice, where attorneys are already said to be keeping files on the case, should not ignore the interpretation of this poorly concealed cry for help: "Step in now! We need you!"

Posted at 03:12:42 PM

Comments

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Mr. Zorn:

Your work on this case was some of the best journalism/commentary that was ever produced by the Chicago Press. As you know, I have always said so. I hope that the former prosecutor Jim Ryan’s name is always linked to this case as a lesson for all prosecutors. You should link to your September 19, 2002, commentary on this subject.

As you know, the obligation of a prosecutor is to do justice – not to win cases -- and to prove the government’s case beyond a reasonable doubt. The ONLY obligation of the jury is to determine whether or not the prosecutor has so proven the case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

I have one question for you that might be off topic. If it is off topic please disregard. Are there any high profile criminal investigations/prosecutions in the Chicago area that you are feeling uneasy about because of “rush to judgment” concerns?

--This case is a horror for the accused and the for victim's family. Justice was never served. Nor was it ever a goal. Personal ambition and the quest for power drove this case with total disregard to the personal carnage done to lives of those involved. The other case which has never, to my mind been given the attention it deserves, is the John Burge torture case. Daley has never been called on to fully explain what he knew and why he never acted on these charges while state's attorney. Torture on a level that is hard to imagine took place on the south side in Chicago police station basements with no one held accountable for decades. The Reader broke the story and did the best and most in depth reporting on this surreal tale of sadism, twisted justice and police brutality. It is unimaginable that for fifteen years Burge enjoyed a Florida retirement, and full police pension immune to any prosecution or any attempt to bring him to justice.

Is this something we have to look forward to every year on the anniversary of this poor child's death? Some former DuPage County prosecutor trying to rewrite the history on this case? Don't you think, now that justice has finally been served, that some people could let this thing go? Out of respect for the parents, if nothing else. Let the case and Jeanine Nicarico rest.

"Anybody who looks at what the evidence was then and what it is now would have to say these guys are innocent. They’re actually innocent. [Rolando Cruz, Alex Hernandez and Stephen Buckley] had nothing to do with it."
-- Joe Birkett

In my life, I have never had occasion to say anything positive about Joe Birkett. But today I have been blessed with that opportunity: Good for you, Joe. Good for you for casting aside the DuPage County myth that these wrongly accused, wrongly prosecuted, wrongly sentenced men had anything to do with this horrible crime.

"You are flat out wrong that there’s any likelihood that an innocent person will ever be executed. Ever. In this state, or for that matter in any other state."
-- Joe Birkett

--If Birkett knew the case was shaky--as many in the legal community did, but though also of DuPage County as a banana republic--what if anything did he do about it? Bupkus. Why? Because he was Jim Ryan's employee and successor.
"He was convinced"? So were many in the legal community. But, he had the opportunity to do something then.

He comes out now, after the acquittals, after shkeevy Jim Ryan's gubernatorial campaign(s), and after the death of Judge Kowal. How brave. Who was brave? the woman attorney in the Attorney General's office who resigned.

--
To Wendy Clark; It is important for the people in charge (police, judges, prosecutors, review boards...) to be reminded they are being watched although painfull for the victims and their families. The people of DuPage and Illinois should have confidence in their district attorneys & thier office, this case was an open wound for everyone and Birkett made the right decision in trying to bandage it. Without Zorn and other members of the press this case would have had a very different out come. Will it make people of Illinois less skeptical and more confident in the district attorneys', U.S. attorney's, police & judges??? I hope not...

I've scanned this column twice to see if there's any mention of Cruz having confessed to the Nicarico murder, and didn't see any. Did he confess, or did I remember things incorrectly?

ZORN REPLY -- No, he didn't IT's a very long and complicated case --- Tom Frisbie and Randy Garrett's book "Victims of Justice" tells it well -- but the bottom line is that what you're probably remembering is a disputed "vision statement" police said Cruz gave them about the crime that they said contained details only the real killer would have known.

I'll past in this old column of mine in hopes it will clarify:

February 8, 1994
THIS 'VISION' LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE CRUZ

On the Thursday before the Monday that Rolando Cruz's murder trial was to begin, his defense attorney, Tom Laz, received surprising news from the prosecution.

Whoops, they said in effect, we just remembered that Cruz gave police a very incriminating statement 19 months ago. We didn't write it down or record it, but we're going to introduce the statement in his trial anyway.

"It was one of the most unbelievable things I'd ever heard," said Laz. "But I also knew it was going to be my biggest hurdle."

For without this alleged statement-two detectives said Cruz had related it to them as a vision-the prosecution had few real links tying Cruz to the high-profile 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Naperville resident Jeanine Nicarico, for which he and two others were on trial, and for which he alone now sits on Death Row.

Prosecutors had no physical evidence linking Cruz to the crime, only the slippery testimony of would-be informants with no direct knowledge of the crime. They had five well-documented interviews with Cruz, but those only showed what everyone knew all along-that Cruz, then 20, was a lying goof, a cocky punk with a big imagination who was angling for the $10,000 reward then being offered.

The written statements contained outright lies, such as Cruz's claim that he had been a U.S. Marine and was 23 years old. These five interviews-three were conducted in front of a grand jury-contain details of the crime Cruz said he had learned from the killers, but these details were known to be wrong in almost every instance.

But the "vision statement" that made its jack-in-the-box appearance four days before the 1985 trial was strikingly different. In it, Cruz said that the victim had been taken from the house in a blanket and that she had been struck in the back of the head so hard it left an impression in the ground. He also related the specific nature of the sexual attack on the girl. These details were known at the time only to police; a citizen who knew them had to be close to the crime.

It was the linchpin of the prosecution and played a key role in Cruz's two convictions, once on retrial. The state is prepared to execute him on its strength. But is it authentic? Consider:

Investigators on the task force looking into the Nicarico murder left a staggering paper trail wherever they went after Feb. 25, 1983. Virtually every interview, contact, tip and reported vision-there were three others-was written up, as is common in major investigations.

"This was the biggest case of our lives," said John Sam, who was a Du Page County sheriff's detective and very active in the investigation. "We followed up everything. We were meticulous."

Indeed Detectives Dennis Kurzawa and Thomas Vosburgh, Sam's office mates, tape-recorded and transcribed the useless interviews with Cruz on May 2, 1983, and May 10, 1983. But in between, on May 9, 1983, the date they later said Cruz willingly spewed forth incriminating details, neither man bothered even to take notes.

They told jurors that before jotting down a word they contacted the assistant Du Page County state's attorney in charge, Thomas Knight. Knight, they said, told them not to bother getting the statement on record, as he was scheduled to interview Cruz himself in front of a grand jury in four days.

Kurzawa and Vosburgh did, however, go ahead and interview Cruz on tape for 14 minutes the next day. Cruz told the same old lies, and his blockbuster vision didn't come up.

Nor did the vision come up when Knight grilled Cruz three times, with no holds barred, in front of the grand jury in succeeding months. The transcripts run 167 pages.

Further, John Sam said Kurzawa and Vosburgh never said a word about Cruz's vision to their office mates.

To conceal such a development in a case from police colleagues "is unheard of," said Sam, who resigned in protest before the trial began. "I'd hate to think they made it up, but it sure kind of looks like it."

The vision only resurfaced, then, in an offhand way in one of the prosecution's final-hour supplemental pretrial filings. They explained to defense attorney Voz that they'd forgotten about the vision until it came up in conversation at a Christmas party several weeks before the trial.

Hey, it could have happened, right? The biggest break in the biggest murder case in Du Page County history could have slipped into the cracks for a year and a half. After all, two juries bought the story and sentenced Cruz to die, which proves stranger things have happened.

This is your finest work. You were right on this all along. You have been consistent on this subject going on two decades.

As far as Mr. Birkett is concerned, this is too little and woefully too late. He had a kabillion opportunities to say what he said many years ago. Not only did he not say it, his dispostion in spirit and letter was totally biased against the search for justice in this case. If he knew early on that the case was shaky, he had a moral obligation to shake the trees and be an obstructionists to prevent innocent people from possible death. Having said that, I give him an ounce of credit because this must of been incredibly difficult for him to say this after his public stance all these years. I'm still amazed that he's able to get elected to public office in Dupage County. He'll never win a statewide general election.

My comments were not directed at Eric Zorn. If not for the excellent columns written by him and others about this travesty of justice, it's likely Cruz and the others would still be sitting on death row. My comments are directed to Birkett, Ryan, and anyone else from the DuPage County prosecutor's office connected to this case. Does Birkett think to make political points by claiming he knew Cruz and the others were innocent AT THAT TIME? Statements like the following seem to suggest so:

'Were it not for misrepresentations and exaggerations of his role in the wrongful prosecutions in the Nicarico case "right now I'd be the attorney general or the governor," Birkett said.'

And he also seems to be blaming the defense lawyers for the resulting death sentences:

He added, "The biggest problems with Cruz and Hernandez were the caliber of the attorneys who represented them initially, the lack of assistance that they had (and) the funding issues. Those are all issues that have been resolved (through reforms in the justice system)."

His bringing this up on the anniversary of this child's murder are completely selfish, in my opinion. And cause unnecessary pain for the family.

Didn't I see Joe Birkett out campaigning not a month ago for his friend Jim Ryan, a guy who even Birkett admits tried to put an innocent guy on death row more than once?

I don't know what to believe from Joe Birkett anymore, especially when he's been holding back information all this time.

If Birkett had any real character, he would have resigned if he really thought an innocent person was being railroaded and he would have made a big public stink about it. But he cared more about not ruffling the feathers of the DuPage boys that might aid his political ambitions.

Well, no. It would be "ignorant" if I had called Joe a "brickhead" because I incorrectly believed that his head was, in fact, constructed of masonry. To the contrary, I suspect that Mr. Birkett's head is composed primarily, if not exclusively, of the usual human tissues.

"Childish"?

Well, of course it is. But the real question is, "How childish?"

Is it more childish than using the name "TigerPaw" to admonish someone for childishness on a blog comments thread?

Yes. My calling Joe Birkett a "brickhead" was much, much more childish than your use of a pseudonym.

But is my calling Joe Birkett a "brickhead" more childish than Joe's naive claim that "an innocent person will [never] be executed. Ever. In this state, or for that matter in any other state"?

No. Birkett's assertion that our criminal justice system -- designed, organized and implimented by mere human beings -- has achieved a divine state of perfection is much more childish than juvenile name-calling. Birkett's childish claim is also very dangerous.

'Were it not for misrepresentations and exaggerations of his role in the wrongful prosecutions in the Nicarico case "right now I'd be the attorney general or the governor," Birkett said.'

The man's delusional.

But even scarier is this, from the Daily Herald story: "Birkett also confirmed widespread courthouse speculation that he "probably" won't seek a fifth term as state's attorney in two years. Birkett said he does not have specific plans but, in the wake of failed attempts at statewide office, he long eyed a spot on an appellate or other high court bench."

EZ,
The law abiding people of DuPage who know the true meaning of justice, owe you a debt of gratitude for revealing the horrors of DuPage's criminal justice system. You and the Tribune have faithfully followed the long tradition of a free press, by acting as a fourth branch of government. The DuPage Daily Herald has not taken on that role and is one of the reasons DuPage is what it is. Like our criminal justice system's failure to seek the truth, the Herald fails to print the truth. Their editors have their heads in the sand.
I'm sure that most observers can see that the Michael Cardamone case is another miscarriage of justice. It will be DuPage's next claim of shame unless his new trial judge sees the prosecution's case for what is, a WITCH HUNT.

Any judge in DuPage who would vote to appoint Birkett an associate judge, needs to be committed. I hope the day will come when Birkett is indicted and brought to justice.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
More about Eric Zorn

Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.